Free The Past Came Hunting by Donnell Ann Bell

around him Hispanic workers mowed lawns or pruned hedges. For most, the scent would have smelled like cut grass and fertilizer. Drake inhaled freedom.
    Inside the lobby, however, his high came crashing down. Behind a marbled counter, an uptight bitch with red lips and claws looked him up and down. “You’re here to see whom?”
    He’d been preparing a biting reply when another woman carrying files rounded the corner, took one look at him and dropped the entire load.
    Drake stared into the enormous blue eyes of Marcy Davidson, now Marcy Maxwell, his sister-in-law. They’d had some good times in the shed behind her house in their early teens. Her nervous display in front of an employee chapped his ass. “Yeah, Marce, it’s me. Do I get a welcome home kiss?”
    She skittered back, straight into the arms of her husband.
    Adam Maxwell greeted Drake with the same stunned reaction. Some reception committee.
    In their youth, people had said the Maxwell brothers looked similar. Based on his waistline, Adam hadn’t missed a meal ever , but Marcy still had a pert little ass. Seeing what flab did to a man, Drake was glad he’d spent his prison years in the weight room, pumping iron.
    “What are you doing here?” Adam finally blurted. “I told you I’d send a driver when you got into town.”
    “I missed you too, brother. I lost your number so I came on over.” Drake glanced around. “Nice place. You want to handle our business in front of these people or what?”
    His sister-in-law’s face had gone ashen. Adam whispered something only she could hear. Whatever he said had the effect of someone granted a stay of execution. Leaving the scattered files where they lay, Marcy made a beeline away from the area.
    “Hey, Marce,” Drake called after her. “Good seeing you. We’ll catch up later.”
    By Adam’s flaring nostrils, he was ready to snort fire. “Let’s go to my office.”
    Drake winked at the equally startled receptionist. She shifted her gaze from his, back to the computer screen. Ah. Even the staff knew all about him. Good to know.
    Walking with Adam down a fancy corridor, Drake stared at the various construction jobs displayed on the walls and all but drooled. Hospitals, schools, manufacturing facilities. No wonder these people were scared. They were about to lose part of a goldmine.
    Adam motioned Drake into a large corner office, shut the door and rounded on him. “How dare you talk to my wife like that? And just look at you. Couldn’t you have gotten a hotel room, showered and shaved before you came?”
    Drake narrowed his gaze. His sandy blond hair was plastered to his head and he’d been wearing the same clothes for the last two days. “With all that money you sent me? And I’ll talk to your wife any damned way I please.”
    Dropping his bag, Drake left Adam where he stood and ambled to an oversized desk. It dwarfed most of the other furniture in the room. “What’s this, your need to compensate?”
    Adam’s frown said he wasn’t amused.
    A framed picture of a couple of school-aged kids Drake had never met sat on the polished cherry wood surface. No one had cared enough to send a birth announcement. “These yours?”
    His brother closed the distance between them and yanked the picture out of Drake’s hands. Placing the frame facedown, he said, “My instructions were plain. The minute you reached L.A. you were to call and I’d send my driver. Not that I’m surprised, but why would you ignore something so simple? And why would you come here of all places?”
    So the very important man doesn’t want to lay claim to his ex-con brother. “Because I wasn’t about to be put on your leash, and I imagine the last place you’d tell your driver was to bring me here.”
    Adam looked like he’d swallowed something sour. Moving to his desk, he sat behind it, while Drake continued to circle the up-scale room. This office was plush―statues, awards, a leather sectional, conference table and